Grocery Shopping in Recovery
“Ew. I’d have a heart attack if I ate these.”
The teenage girl bagging my groceries wrinkled her nose in unison with the cashier placing my box of Triscuits on the belt as if it were a dirty diaper. Horrified, I offered no retort as I paid for my groceries and headed for the sliding doors.
Grocery shopping was never easy for me during recovery, and that one snide remark shot me back in time…
Years back, I had the hardest time shopping for food. I’d only shop in specific stores, for food that met even more specific criteria. And that criteria could vacillate wildly from one month to the next, depending on what wellness literature I was hooked on at the time.
Grocery shopping sucked.
Here’s how things used to go:
I’d spend hours making the perfect grocery list, with a few fear foods to challenge myself, and plenty of “good” foods to pacify my anxiety.
When I finally went shopping, I’d mull about in the aisles, completely frozen by indecision over what version or flavor of something to buy, and - once I did choose something - whether to keep it in my basket or not.
Then, I’d avoid getting too close to other shoppers or checking out with the cashier because I had anxiety over people judging what I’d collected in my carriage.
If this sounds anything like your experience, listen up:
These are disordered behaviors, not recovery efforts!
Over-scrutinizing your grocery lists, decision paralysis, and avoiding drawing attention to the fact that you, too, must eat to live, are ALL safety behaviors. And continuing to use these behaviors like a crutch in your recovery will only hinder your efforts, and drag out your recovery longer.
This little nugget of wisdom took me the longest to recognize in recovery, and it’s what made my recovery process drag on forever and ever. Here it is:
You will stay in recovery forever if you don’t learn to root out sneaky safety behaviors.
So, if you want to get out of semi-recovery and be in full remission already, here’s what you need to do: 👇🏼
==> Root out where you’re relying on safety behaviors like a crutch.
As overly-simplistic as it may sound, in order to get out of semi-recovery, you need to sniff out your crutches. Do the investigative work.
In order to find sneaky safety behaviors, ask yourself this:
Where in my life am I still practicing rigidity?
When do I get anxiety if something doesn’t go as planned?
What would make me irritated if I could no longer do it?
For every safety behavior you find, you must actively root it out.
Challenge your safety habits. Make yourself uncomfortable, because the more you avoid taunting your fears, the more they become reinforced.
So, instead of staying in a place you think is comfortable, but that’s really just keeping you stuck in semi-recovery purgatory…
👉🏼 Go to the grocery store that scares you.
👉🏼 Buy the items you’re afraid to eat.
👉🏼 Stop writing comprehensive lists.
👉🏼 Grab something from the aisles you don’t normally walk down.
👉🏼 Stop rounding out fear foods with safety foods or behaviors.
👉🏼 Buy foods impulsively; put something scary in your cart and don’t look back.
👉🏼 Stop using the self-checkout, buy the food, and move on.
Today, I think back on the girls who derided my food choices, wondering why it shocked me so deeply. And I realized something: they were the exact voice I used to have inside of my head. The struggle I once had, she was now going through. And I’m willing to bet we aren’t the only two.
So, if you got this far, here’s my best advice to you:
Don’t let a b*tchy grocery clerk take up residence in your head.
💞
Maria
